ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK) said Wednesday it intercepted an Iranian drone attack on one of its bases north of Erbil. The assault, the third consecutive attack on Kurdish dissident groups in the Kurdistan Region since Monday, caused no casualties, a group representative told Rudaw.
In a statement it posted on X, PAK said “a drone” launched by “the Iranian regime was intercepted” as it attempted an attack on bases belonging to the group’s armed wing, the Kurdistan National Army.
Rebaz Sharifi, a PAK leadership member, told Rudaw on Wednesday the “drone was intercepted over their Chamshar base located along the Erbil-Duhok road” near the Darashakran sub-district north of Erbil. “No casualties resulted from the attempted attack,” Sharifi confirmed.
Earlier in the day, the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), the largest Iranian Kurdish dissident group, reported that one of its bases in the Balisan region, northeast of Erbil, was targeted by a one-way drone, a KDPI official told Rudaw on condition of anonymity, adding that no casualties were recorded.
On Monday, three missiles struck a camp housing families of the Iranian Kurdish dissident group Komala in Zirgwez, a town in the southern part of Sulaimani province known for hosting Iranian Kurdish opposition camps. A group official told Rudaw the attack caused material damage but no casualties.
Iran has launched some 1000 drone and missile attacks on the Kurdistan Region since the outbreak of the six week war in late February, primarily targeting Kurdish dissident groups and killing 32 people and wounding 154 others as of early August, according to Rudaw tracking.
The attacks on the Kurdistan Region persisted even after the US and Iran reached a ceasefire on April 7, followed by the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding signed on June 17. The assaults also continued despite repeated affirmations by Kurdish officials that the Region is not a party to the conflict.
The latest strikes notably coincide with the fourth anniversary of the death of Zhina (Mahsa) Amini - a 22-year-old Kurdish woman from Iran's Kurdistan province who died in a Tehran hospital on September 16, 2022, three days after morality police detained her for allegedly violating the country's mandatory hijab laws.
Amini’s death ignited the largest nationwide protests Iran had seen in decades, known as the Jin, Jiyan, Azadi - or Woman, Life, Freedom - movement.
An alliance of six major Kurdish opposition parties on Sunday called for a general strike across Iran's predominantly Kurdish western regions (Rojhelat) on Wednesday to mark the anniversary. Iranian security forces have arrested at least four Kurdish business owners there, a prominent human rights monitor reported Tuesday, in an apparent bid to head off the strike.
